


Wormwood

by taichara



Category: Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-27
Updated: 2014-09-27
Packaged: 2018-02-18 22:46:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2364785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taichara/pseuds/taichara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a day of work, Albafica has all the time in the world to reflect on his own condition.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wormwood

**Author's Note:**

> _prompt: author's choice, author's choice, solitary confinement_

_When did it manage to get so late?_

Indeed, there was barely a ribbon of rosy flame still to be seen on the western horizon. Albafica sat back on his heels, smiling ruefully, as he brushed stray clumps of soil from his tunic and trews; no wonder he’d been having to squint more and more to get the seedlings planted properly. Well, never let it be said that he put less than his all into his work.

_The villages need these grown and harvested before winter sets in or we’ll be ready victims if there’s another outbreak._

_This much, at least, I can do for the people that look to Sanctuary for guidance._

Better the anonymous bundles of medicinals than the alternative should he put in an actual appearance. Let them – let his fellow Saints – think him cold and as thin-blooded as his Cloth, but it was and always would be better than the alternative. Albafica wanted no deaths of innocents on his hands.

_Master Lugonis, I am doing what I can to continue your work …_

_Did you know this would happen? This exile?_

Not that the former Saint of Fishes would have admitted his own pain to his student, let alone … no, that was uncharitable, unworthy.

_I’m in quite the mood tonight, apparently._

Foolish, foolish Pisces. Sternly Albafica chided himself for the moment of bitterness and rose to his feet, dusting off the last of the soil and gathering up the wooden trays that had so recently been home to delicate little green hopes. 

Once stacked neatly, the trays were soon joined by his tools, and all were carried into the small fieldstone shelter tucked discreetly out of sight at the edge of his Temple’s broad cliff-side gardens. Nothing left out meant nothing left to mend later. And only once all were checked over – twice – and safely stowed away, and the seedlings covered, did he finally allow himself the time for a bath.

-*-

It was after a lengthy soak and scrubbing, while he watched the water drain away through the charcoal traps, that he was sharply reminded of why his mood had so easily turned bitter earlier in the evening. As he stood there in a drying-robe, wringing pale hair dry over the first trap, faint snatches of song and laughter drifted up the Holy Hill – and, despite himself, he stopped and stood quietly, eyes sliding closed as he listed to the distant sounds.

_So they went ahead with it._

_Well, the night is good for it; I wish them good fortune._

It was a noble thought, perhaps, but it hardly kept Albafica from feeling a sharp sting of regret; a response he clamped down on viciously even as he drifted from the baths back through the heavy marble portal closing off his quarters and crossed the broad pillared hall of Pisces to stand on his Temple’s briar-strewn stairway.

If they were gathering at Scorpio Temple, which was what he’d heard in passing, then if he shifted just so and, following the merry sounds, gazed down past the last few terraces, ignoring the switchbacks … Yes, there. In the night’s inky depths he could see the fire-bright glow of Kardia’s Temple. The lot of them certainly weren’t wasting any time, then.

_Kardia will be up to Aquarius Temple by mid-morning, the poor bastard fool, if Degel isn’t summoned down to him first._

_I should see what I have on hand, in case …_

Yes, that was a much better use of his time than standing like a statue, eavesdropping on events halfway down the mountain. It was easy enough avoiding contact with Degel, if it came to that; and if Kardia was burning his candle at both ends again, well, Albafica supposed he didn’t quite blame the man.

And he couldn’t help but murmur – deep in his still-room beneath the Temple as he worked – that perhaps he’d cast his own remaining years away to actually manage to _live_.


End file.
